Novel research led by Wei Qin, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Oklahoma, that significantly changes the understanding of ammonia oxidation, a critical component of the global nitrogen cycle, has been published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms, commonly called AOM, use ammonia for energy and account for the annual oxidation of approximately 2.3 trillion kilograms of nitrogen in soil, freshwater, the subsurface, and man-made ecosystems. One major question that has remained unanswered for decades is how different lineages of AOM species coexist in the same environment: do they compete for ammonia or instead use other alternative compounds for their energy needs?
"The different lineages of AOM are simultaneous growing in the same environment and were thought to primarily compete for ammonia," Qin said. "Our collaborative research focused on determining why and how these metabolically conserved lineages are able to coexist without direct competition for inorganic nitrogen (ammonia), and we examined their abilities to use organic nitrogen (urea) instead."
